Rally
by The Exile
Summary: Wizeman wants Reala to introduce the NiD Nightmaren and the JoD Nightmaren to each other. It all starts going wrong when Bomamba's kittens escape and decide to terrorise Clawz. Then it gets worse.
1. Chapter 1

Clawz knew he was being watched.

Normally, when he detected the presence of an intruder in his realm, especially when it was smaller than him, he pounced on it and ate it first and asked questions later. The fact that he hadn't done so was in itself an indication that something was wrong about these intruders. They were moving too fast to be lost Nightopians, too deliberately and without any of the jerky hopping movements of something that could fly but only just. They were too small to be any of his fellow Second Class Nightmaren, whom he wasn't allowed to eat unless they tried to eat him first, or even a stray Third Class, which he was allowed to eat if it wandered into his domain but wasn't allowed to actively hunt down. (Acceptable food sources included Nightopians, door-to-door salespeople, investigate reporters and NiGHTs.)

He wondered how an intruder could even get in. He remembered Wizeman telling him earlier that the doors to his domain would be locked to make extra sure that he couldn't sneak into Gulpo's domain and try to eat him again. Many large sectors of the Nightmare Realm were to be locked down today. The entire Realm was on heightened security because of some important visitors or something. He assumed it was politics, something boring and needlessly complicated, so he didn't enquire very closely. Only the First Class Nightmaren were allowed to attend whatever was happening. The lesser Nightmaren were expected to be on standby at all times in case there was a security breach. Clawz had been resetting his exploding clockwork mouse trap when he first noticed the intruders. Reala had been kind enough to leave him a box of fresh mice before locking the doors, so he could screw them in place of the ones that had exploded already, then wind them up by inserting his claw into the hole in the gearbox and twisting. All he could do after that was curl up into a deceptively relaxed-looking ball of striped fur in the middle of his circle of exploding mice and wait for something edible to turn up.

He smelled them before he caught a glimpse of them. That was the first indication that something was odd about them. They smelled almost like himself. Tiny, scuttling versions of himself whose glowing green eyes watched him back, rarely blinking, from somewhere deep within the shadows.

He stared at them, counting how many there were, trying to judge how fast they could move, how patiently they could wait. Occasionally he let out a low feline growl that steadily rose in pitch and volume to communicate that he wasn't afraid of them, that he always had his eye on them and that he was dangerously angry at their existence.

He didn't quite realise in time that he was completely surrounded.

* * *

_I look like a ridiculous fop,_ thought Reala as he reluctantly tried on the new outfit he was expected to wear.

The red and black gold-trimmed ceremonial armour wasn't so bad. At least it was in his favourite colour scheme, it matched his head-dress and boots and it was vaguely martial. He doubted it could actually stop any kind of attack more forceful than a thrown harsh word. Not that he even had any reason to wear armour, relying as he did entirely on speed, acrobatic skill and the advantages of free flight. Armour would weigh him down in a real battle more than it would aid him. Still, this was not a battle but a diplomatic meeting with his new allies, freshly created Nightmaren who had been assigned to the newly conquered regions of the Dreamscape, who were as unquestioningly loyal to Lord Wizeman as himself, if not as experienced and not as familiar with the politics of the Nightmare Realm. For now, at least, he would not need to unsheathe his claws.

Heavier armour was befitting for his new status as General of the entire Nightmaren Army, which was about to become considerably larger now that their territory spanned a whole six new dreamscapes. He was no longer to stay in his home realm of Stick Canyon, but was to govern the affairs of all the Second Class Nightmaren in both regions directly, second in command only to Lord Wizeman himself. Although he had been designed by Lord Wizeman to lead the others, and to be stronger, more capable and more ambitious than them, he had never officially been given a higher status until now, partly because the army wasn't large enough and partly because of concerns that he would become another NiGHTs. Lord Wizeman had judged that it had been long enough since the incident without any sign that Reala also had the capacity to betray him. Clearly, NiGHTs had been a solitary glitch in the system.

The gold-rimmed ballroom mask had at least been explained to him. It was part of a new system that Lord Wizeman was experimenting with, involving the use of common dream personae to make the first-class Nightmaren able to transform their identities and adapt to different scenarios in battle. He failed to see why the jewel inside it had to be bright pink, or why he had to wear a matching jewel, larger and also pink, around his neck. Some jewels were good foci for magic, he supposed, and Lord Wizeman's plan probably involved a great deal of magic.

The pink and purple scarf, however, was unacceptable. The only possible merit of wearing such an accessory if he wanted to be taken seriously as the General of an army of Nightmare Beings of Pure Terror was that it was terrifyingly gaudy. _It's in the same colour scheme that NiGHTs wears. What is Lord Wizeman thinking? _

There was a harsh knock on the door and he flinched, almost dropping the scarf, when he realised that he had been thinking seditious thoughts about a master who could read his mind without effort and could well be monitoring him right now without him ever realising it. He would be severely punished for doubting Lord Wizeman in even such a petty matter as fashion sense. First-Class Nightmaren were tools created for a purpose, their very souls crafted by Lord Wizeman, and even the slightest capacity for disobedience was a critical flaw. He was not a faulty machin_e_. _I will not turn into my brother..._

He quickly wrapped the scarf around his neck and opened the door. He let himself relax; it was only a messenger Hollow.

"The visitors have arrived and are being escorted to the Grand Chamber, Sir," squawked the Hollow, fluttering its feathers nervously; it was probably as afraid of the First-Class Nightmaren as Reala was afraid of Wizeman, "The Great One has instructed you to be present and ready at the Hall before their arrival."

"Inform Lord Wizeman that I have received the message and have already set off," Reala told the bird. He checked the clasp of his necklace one last time, then slammed the door behind him with more force than strictly necessary and flew down the corridor.

All the doors to the Second Class Nightmaren lairs were still locked. They were to be released only when the visitors had settled down and everyone could be formally (and safely) introduced. None of them had found a way to escape yet. This worried Reala. He had known his subordinates long enough to know that there was no way to keep them securely locked up. They were nightmares; you couldn't escape them and you couldn't keep them at bay forever.

It was only when he spotted Clawz bolting down the adjoining corridor, screeching and hissing and spitting, covered in a cloud of spiteful, malicious fluffy black kittens, that he felt secure in his reality. The few kittens that he had managed to shake off scampered down the corridor after him. One of them stopped to glare at Reala. He grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and inspected it thoughtfully as it struggled to free itself from his grasp and/or claw his hand off. He wondered whether Bomamba had an infinite supply of the things or whether she would still be out looking for them when he arrived.


	2. Chapter 2

"I beg your pardon, Generalissimo," said Donbalon, "But I have heard rumours that the famous Madame Puffy practises in the vicinity. Do you think it would it be possible for me to meet her? Could you perhaps arrange an audience, using your new found influence? I am a great admirer of her performances. I have been to all her concerts, you know... I believe I have even seen her at one of my own..."

The glass of wine in his elongated fingers sloshed around a little as he bounced towards the table where Reala hovered, discussing strategy with Queen Bella. Reala was surprised to learn that anyone at all appreciated Puffy's music but was unsurprised to hear that it was her counterpart in the new Nightmare realms. Lord Wizeman, in his infinite wisdom, must have designed him to have the same musical tastes as her, as well as a similarly distasteful physical appearance. Maybe he sang like her as well. He looked more like a clown than an opera singer, but then Puffy looked more like an overfed rabbit than an opera singer. Maybe their voices cancelled each other out. He hoped they did, as the only other consequence he could imagine of their duet would be the orchestral equivalent of antimatter colliding with matter.

"Very soon," said Reala firmly, "You will all have your chance to meet your counterparts. The meeting is over but we will not be allowed to leave until Lord Wizeman gives his word. Then I will direct you to Madame Poufille's domain, and you, Bomamba, may search for the rest of your kittens..."

As it turned out, Bomamba did not have an inexhaustible supply of kittens stowed away in a pocket dimension somewhere. Although there were, at Reala's last count, 255 of them, they were individual creatures that existed permanently, if a little incredulously, somewhere in the folds of Bomamba's robes, and the demonic cat-lady boasted that she knew all their names and could tell them apart by sight. She would, or so she claimed, be heartbroken to lose even one of them. She reluctantly agreed to leave off the search for them until after the meeting – after all, they couldn't have gone far if the entire building was locked down and they were practically indestructible anyway. She was a little worried that certain of the kittens would pine for the others. Reala had made a polite excuse and left the table when she began to try and explain the complex social structure of the various kitten families.

"... and, Queen Bella, I wish to speak to you more about this Cerberus," ordered Reala. Self-satisfied glee lit up in the arachnid's eyes and she rubbed two sets of hands together. Reala liked Queen Bella and not only because spiders were a good choice of mental imagery for nightmares. She was cunning and intelligent. She had a good scientific and strategic mind. Sensible conversation was something that Reala sorely missed. Of the Nightmaren who could actually speak, he had a choice between a traitor, a madman and a woman whose voice had a tendency to shatter glass when something displeased her.

"I will show him to you, if you like," she said, "I must warn you, though, he is very dangerous, even when he is on his leash and inside his cage. We can barely control him."

"I trust that he will be controllable in battle," he said, "I have no use for a weapon, even the most deadly weapon, that is as much a danger to me as to my enemies."

"We make progress every day. By the time we are called upon for our first battle, I promise you, he will be fully under our control."

Reala liked the idea of Cerberus in theory but was unconvinced that such a grand scheme would work. They had a Second Class Nightmaren based on a creature from human mythology once before. It didn't work. After several thousand more years of studying the vast shared dreamscapes of the irritatingly complicated animals called humans, Lord Wizeman realised that the dragon was simply too ambitious and vague an archetype to work on. Gilwing was like an empire with overstretched borders – he was a mish-mash of too many different types of Dragons, a creature that appeared in legends all around the world and that had wildly different properties and implications, resulting in a floating spiky blob with a tail. The Cerberus was different. A gigantic, ferocious three-headed hound that guarded the gates of the Underworld was something a lot simpler to work with, made an excellent guard dog and, most importantly, there was no such thing as a lucky hellhound.

"I simply must show you the Girania as well," announced the spider-lady, helping herself to a glass of wine with one of her hands while clapping two more with enthusiasm, "I do hope our little experiment worked!"

Gulpo and Girania had already been introduced into the same environment. Once it had been established that they would not attempt to attack or mate with each other, the plan was to lower the barriers between them and teach them to synchronise their attacks. Reala wasn't sure how this would work, seeing as Gulpo's memory lasted for three seconds. He was a little worried that Clawz had already found and was even now trying to eat both fish.

"Donbalon, I forbid you to drink any more wine, you are beginning to tilt!" hissed Queen Belle as the obese clown almost collided with her, "If you cannot stand still for so long, go and find Charmelan! You know how I worry when it has been a long time since I last saw him!"

* * *

As he swam his third circuit of his bowl (he was fairly sure it was his third, anyway), Gulpo had the ever-familiar nagging feeling that there was something very important he was supposed to be remembering.

The shadow passed over him, a heavily armoured conglomeration of small blobs that seemed eerily piscine in its shape and movement pattern, and he suddenly recalled what it was that he had forgotten. There was another fish in here with him! At least, he assumed it was another fish; it looked and moved enough like a fish, so he couldn't really think of anything else that it could be, and the strain of trying to overstretch his limited imagination was bringing on another migraine.

He waved his tail in annoyance, sending ripples across the surface of his bowl. Why had he been trying to think of things that looked like fish anyway? Why was he even thinking about fish? He realised that he had completely lost his train of thought again.

Suddenly, a shadow passed over him...

_Hello. Who are you?_

The telepathic message took him by surprise and he darted forward instinctively, veering off course from his patrol of the outer perimeter of his bowl. Who was talking inside his mind? It had to be a fish – other life-forms could not intercept the psychic channel that fish used to communicate with one another and send bad vibes to humans. Was someone else in the bowl with him? How had he failed to notice them?

_I am Gulpo! I live here, _he communicated in reply, _Who are you?_

After a few seconds, he received a confused reply, _Um... what were we talking about again?_

Seconds later, another shadow flitting across his field of vision made him dart off in the other direction. He wondered if he was ever going to complete a full circuit of his bowl. This shadow looked like the dangerous one with the big teeth that enjoyed staring at him with a hungry look in its eyes, except that it did not stop, but ran past him, making odd noises and leaking small versions of itself that chased after it. It wasn't long before the shadow entirely disappeared. Gulpo knew there were still things in the room with him. They didn't cast shadows but he felt them on a deeper level even than his primal instincts, at the core of his essence as a dream-being. They felt very wrong.

He relaxed only when they, too, went away.

_Excuse me,_ said a voice in his head, _Is anybody there?_


	3. Chapter 3

Jackle floated upside down inside the wooden chest in the centre of his lair, gloved hands folded across the cape that served as his body, and muttered sullenly to himself. His words were unintelligible to anyone who might be listening. Not that anyone paid any attention to him. He was making sense to himself.

"Treat me like I'm not a real person, they do," he muttered, "Like I'm no different to the fish. Like I don't know what's going on. I'll show them. One day. They'll let their guard down eventually. Just wait! Then things'll be different around here. Oh yes..."

He didn't break off from his monologue as he flipped around several times and pulled a string of cards from the sleeve of his otherwise hollow left glove, then shuffled them in a blur of movement that went beyond expert skills into the realm of supernatural ability. He considered inviting his other personalities around for a hand of poker but then he remembered that he did that yesterday and he had lost all his money to them. He was sure they had been cheating but he couldn't prove anything. He settled for juggling the cards from one glove to the other, making ever more intricate patterns that blended into each other, faster and faster.

"I'm always watching and waiting. They don't know what's coming to them. Ha!" he cackled, his hands speeding up, his concentration not wavering despite the passion of his speech.

Suddenly, the cards were gone. He reached for them with his right hand and his fingers closed around thin air.

"Looking for something?"

Jackle broke off from his rant and looked up sharply. The lid of his box was open and a pair of unblinking amphibian eyes were studying him. The lizard wore a smart waistcoat, a cape embroidered with card symbols and a top hat, giving him the appearance of a stage magician or circus ringmaster. He didn't appear to have feet, but instead floated in mid-air like Jackle. In one hand he held a cane, in the other he juggled the cards up and down, occasionally tossing them through a magic portal that looked like a ripple in reality, as though what Jackle thought he saw was actually a reflection on a pond that had been disturbed. He blinked, confused. The strange lizard-man noted his confusion with a hint of humour in his impassive gaze.

"You looked bored and you had a pack of cards, so I thought I'd entertain you," he said, "Have you seen some kittens around here? I was going to juggle them but they escaped, so I had nothing to juggle. Thank you for lending me the cards!"

"Kittens?" repeated Jackle, a little dazed from the bright light suddenly filtering into his box.

"Are you supposed to be locked in a box? Is it a trick? Is someone going to saw you in half?" asked the lizard, "I'm going to be in massive trouble for taking the kittens without permission! She never gives me permission, though, so there's no reason for me to ask. They clawed me, too!"

He waved one of his hands in Jackle's face to demonstrate that the white silk glove had a large tear through it. His leathery hide was also slightly scratched.

"That... thing..." Jackle pointed to the portal with one of his own disembodied hands, "Can you do that at will?"

"Oh yeah, vanishing tricks are my speciality."

"Could you vanish me as well? Somewhere on the other side of the locked door?"

"There's a locked door?" the lizard scratched his head, letting the cards fall. Jackle quickly snatched them out of the air at a speed that made the stranger flinch. He might be better at magic tricks, thought Jackle with a note of triumph, but he was still better at card tricks.

"I'll help you look for the kittens," promised Jackle, "Anything's better than being ignored and treated like I don't have any opinions. I'm supposed to be promoted to First Class, you know, but Reala says I'm too crazy, even though I can do everything he and NiGHTs can do! I was going to hide in this box as protest, but I'm not sure Reala actually cares if I hide in a box all day, come to think of it. I'm Jackle, by the way," he said, suddenly remembering that he was supposed to introduce himself when he met new people.

"I'm Charmelan," said the lizard, offering a hand to shake. Then he twirled his cane theatrically and bowed. The portal grew larger and the cards were sucked into it. Jackle and his new friend jumped inside as well.

* * *

Meanwhile, Reala got his first look at the dreaded Cerberus.

They were halfway down the corridor that led from the meeting hall, past the quest quarters and towards the visitor's entrance. Reala pointed to the junction that would lead to Puffy's lair, which was set apart from the other lairs as there was often a noise problem, even though the entire lair was sound-proofed, as well as being much larger than the other realms to cater for Puffy's grandiose tastes. Donbalon happily bounced down the corridor, occasionally falling over due to the amount of wine he had drunk and the problems he was having with the fact that the corridors were horizontal and he was designed to move vertically.

It was just as he turned his back on Donbalon, having counted all the valuable things in the corridor and being fairly sure that the clown hadn't knocked any of them over, that he was almost trampled by Clawz. Still covered in kittens, he bolted down the corridor at top speed, now pursued by three furiously barking spiked blobs, chained together with huge iron spiked chains, their demonic, leering visages vaguely resembling dogs' heads. Their cruel teeth snapped open and shut as they strained to grab Clawz. Amidst all the chaos, a detached part of Reala's mind noted that they weren't much of an improvement on Gilwing: they were, once again, spiked blobs that barely resembled what they were supposed to represent. Also, the chains were getting in each other's way and slowing their movement.

"What in Lord Wizeman's name..." began Reala.

"Eugene! Heloise!" shrieked Bomamba, darting forwards and extricating two of the kittens from Clawz. She continued calling the kittens individually by name as she searched for them. Clawz frantically tried to pull himself free of her surprisingly strong grip. The kittens meowed in response to their names. Some of them jumped off and disappeared into the folds of Bomamba's cloak but others grew excited and playfully tried to claw the larger cat's ears off. Added to this, Cerberus was still hurtling down the corridor, growling and snapping.

"How dare you frighten my kittens, you monster!" hissed Bomamba. She turned around and fixed Cerberus a slightly rabid look. She opened her jacket, revealing hundreds of black fluffy cat heads, all with bright green eyes that glowed even without darkness. Her own eyes glowed green as well. They all yowled in unison, an effect that made Reala float up to the ceiling to avoid her. Almost hit in the face by a flurry of angry kittens, Cerberus yelped and retreated down the corridor.

"And you as well, you mangy old thing!" said Bomamba, thumping Clawz on the head. His fur stood on end and he jumped straight up, attempting to hang from the light fitting and hide behind Reala.

"I'm really sorry about all the mess," said Bomamba, attempting to scoop up the remaining kittens, "I have no idea how they all got out..."

"What I want to know, is how Clawz got out!" said Reala, hovering away the giant cat. Some of the kittens were trying to jump high enough to reach him, and quite a few had the idea of using Reala's feet as a stepping stone to their goal.

"I have my suspicions," hissed Queen Belle, peering at the walls and ceiling as though she expected to see something come out of them.

"Go and put that thing back inside its cage. I'm going to have to make sure Clawz returns to his lair," said Reala.

Clawz grudgingly followed him back down the corridor, jumping from lampshade to lampshade and flat refusing to return to the ground. As he led the sullen feline back down the corridor, his eyes darted to every corner, looking for either particularly stubborn kittens or clues as to why everyone was escaping from their lairs.

As soon as he looked out of the window into the courtyard, he left Clawz behind. He darted straight out of the window and towards the figure he spotted, silhouetted against the moonlight.


	4. Chapter 4

"NiGHTs!" bellowed Reala, drill-dashing straight at him at top speed. The jester glanced over his shoulder at his brother, giving him a look as though he was entirely inconsequential, then back-flipped into a paraloop that Reala had to swerve at the last second to avoid.

"Nice scarf!" said NiGHTs, now upside down.

"What are you doing here? We're supposed to be on heightened security!" demanded Reala.

"Um... they just let me in. Look, I've got neat new clothes too!" NiGHTs showed off his brand new attire, twirling around in mid-air so that Reala could see the effect from different angles. Unlike Reala, his outfit didn't look that different apart from minor alterations: the patterns around his legs being more elaborate, his glove cuffs being replaced by striped bangles, his large purple collar removed and his pink waistcoat given a proper collar of its own.

"What the... that doesn't even make sense!"

"Are you jealous 'cause you're not the only one?" NiGHTs stuck his tongue out at Reala.

"Are you completely insane? You're a traitor! You're faulty! I was given these as a promotion! Why would Lord Wizeman give you new clothes – to mark that you're in even bigger trouble?"

"If you must know, Wizeman let me off for the day, if I performed a special task for him," NiGHTs told him, "And he said if I do it well enough, I can get back in his good books. Not that I want to. But I kind of want to do this job anyway, so I said yes."

"What job? Why wasn't I informed of this?" Reala snarled. He watched NiGHTs, waiting for an opening, the next time his brother got distracted by something shiny or randomly decided to fly around, but NiGHTs was watching him too, mimicking his movements and giving him amused glances. NiGHTs knew what he was doing; they were brothers, and had fought beside each other and against each other for longer than most of the Second Class Nightmaren had even existed. They couldn't hide anything from each other.

"Well... Wizeman said it was a secret, and I wasn't to tell anyone," said NiGHTs, rolling over and over while crossing his arms behind his head and sitting in a cross-legged position, "But I don't think he meant you."

Reala was grateful, for once, that his brother couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it, "There's a thing I'm looking out for. A very dangerous intruder that's been seen in the the new realms. Its the real reason why the security is so high. It's been causing a lot of damage and nobody's sure where it comes from or what it wants, other than its dangerous to Nightmaren, dreamers... pretty much everyone."

This made a lot more sense to Reala than the idea that Wizeman honestly thought that he could keep all the Nightmaren under lockdown for even five seconds. He wondered if the 'dangerous intruder' had anything to do with Clawz getting out. From the way NiGHTs was talking about it, it would do a lot worse than help Clawz escape if it got into the facility. If his brother had an even remotely serious look on his face when he spoke about something, it was time to be afraid, "So... this intruder... what does it look like?"

"Well, they sort of..." NiGHTs scratched his head and spun around on the spot, "You know the Egg Clocks?"

Reala shuddered. The half-mechanical, half-alive things that looked like alarm clocks emerging from egg-shells were a constant threat inside the Nightmare Realm, where they roamed the borders aimlessly, occasionally wandering into inhabited areas when they sensed the thought patterns of any living thing, especially newly arrived dreamers. Their motives were unknown, whether they ate dream energy, or whether they were even intelligent at all. Their presence caused dreamers to spontaneously wake up, usually to catastrophic effect if they were deep into the realm of Nightopia or if anything had happened to their Ideya while they were asleep. Any non-dreamers tended to have their essence damaged in a way that made it very hard to repair. Wizeman occasionally used them as hunting dogs if he knew for certain that a dreamer was trespassing but on the whole they were treated with the same wary respect as deadly scorpions.

"Is there one in here?" demanded Reala, "Where?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out," said NiGHTs, "But it isn't just the egg clocks. There are these things that behave in the same way but they look and act more like intelligent creatures. Well, they sort of look like ghosts."

"Ghosts? How can there be ghosts? There isn't anything that can die in the dreamscape!" Nightmaren lost their essence when damaged, which would completely destroy them if it happened too often, but they didn't have a life force in the way that people in the waking world did, as they didn't really have bodies. No Nightmaren had ever decayed over time up to now, although there was a theory that the essence might wear out over extreme lengths of time and it just hadn't been long enough yet.

"Well, yeah, I know, but that's what they look like. They're not from this world. They sort of look like they're not quite in it, like ghosts are only half in the world of the living," explained NiGHTs, "They don't look right at all. They creep me out."

"So, you've seen them first hand?" asked Reala, wondering how eerie something had to be if it could scare an ex- First Class Nightmaren. They avoided things that they knew were too much for them but it was very difficult for them to be afraid to the extent that it interfered with their ability to act in a rational manner.

"I didn't see where it went, though. I'm listening out for an Egg Clock. It definitely had one with it," said NiGHTs.

"I need to keep a closer eye on the Nightmaren who aren't in their quarters if there's an Egg Clock roaming around!" said Reala.

"Don't tell Wizeman I said so, though!"

"Lord Wizeman is probably listening to us right now. You really don't understand the concept of following orders, do you?" he sighed, "You'd better not be making this up! If I find out you're not supposed to be here after all, I won't go easy on you!"

"Do tell me if you see it, right?" asked NiGHTs enthusiastically, "It might be scary, but its sort of fascinating as well. We might have finally found out where those egg clocks come from!"

"Trust you to poke your nose into something that dangerous!" said Reala.

"I haven't got a nose!" NiGHTs reminded him. His brother didn't reply. He shrugged and flew off in the other direction.


	5. Chapter 5

The clock rang out as soon as it detected life forms, a faint noise at first but the silent figures that surrounded it knew it would quickly grow louder and more urgent. It instinctively turned to pursue them but the figure grabbed it and turned it back in the direction it was supposed to be going in, motioning it away before it began to alert people to their whereabouts or corrode the structure of the corridor they were trying to walk down enough to drop the ceiling on their heads. It wouldn't have damaged them but it would alert everyone in the realm to their presence and prevent them from doing anything useful. They grated against the reality of the realm just by existing; an aura of white noise crackled around them as they moved and the floor was slowly decaying as they floated above it as though wearing away over time.

They looked around to see if they were being followed one last time before floating up into the chamber. The encounter with the fish had left them nervous; it had definitely seen them and its alien mind was almost able to comprehend them, although it seemed to forget about them moments later.

The spot they had chosen was a disused storage chamber leading off from the side of Gulpo's lair. The fish certainly didn't use it for itself and there was no need for the other Nightmaren to store something in such a remote location where it would probably end up damp, so it hadn't even been opened in millennia. Its structure was already fading a little. It was perfect for their task. The figure in the lead opened the door and motioned for them to drag the Egg Clock inside.

Once the door closed behind them, they pushed a button on the clock's panel underneath its face, which glowed white and projected an image on the far wall. Like slides in an old-fashioned projector, the motion was jerky and haphazard as it cycled through still scenes of various locations around the Nightmare Realm; the Great Hall, the Courtyard, the lairs of the various Nightmaren. In each location, objects stood out that would have been invisible to the eye of a Nightmaren or dreamer, but the pools of darkness that served as eyes for the strangers were drawn to them. They shone bright white, somehow more solid than their surroundings, as though they were made of the raw stuff of the dreamscape rather than the permanent illusions that made up Wizeman's creations. Their appearance was something like the broken shards of a clock face.

After it had displayed the locations of all the strange objects, the Egg Clock slowly scanned across a panoramic view of a vast white plane, featureless apart from black outlines of half-formed things, as though it were a canvas where an artist sketched their first ideas for things. It was impossible to tell whether the things had only just been formed for the first time or were about to fade out of existence, or maybe both. They hung stationary, supported by nothing. A Nightmaren observer would not have been able to identify the location even if they remained hidden long enough to catch a glimpse, without the hungry eyes of the strangers or the animal senses of the Clock finding them, or their aura of decay making the Nightmaren too uncomfortable to remain. This was not a place whose existence was noted by anyone in the Dreamscape, or even a place they could get to any more.

The view spiralled inwards to the very centre of the realm. Its fabric became slightly more developed and whole as it approached the centre, until a raised plaza like a shrine came into view. Upon its steps was a giant Clock. It resembled the Egg Clocks but much larger and without the shell; it could almost have been the mother that birthed them, except that it showed no facility for doing so. It was simpler and more primitive in nature than the others, a round face with two hands on the front and two bells on the top. It stood on four legs, although its back legs had sunk slightly into the ground as though it was even incompatible with this realm it had tried to manifest in. There was something ancient and still about it, as though it was meaningless to even speak of the passage of time affecting it. Its hands did not move. Wires streamed out of a small hole in the back of the Clock, leading to machinery all around the plaza. Portals that looked like the projected image from the Egg Clocks were opening and closing, admitting or receiving a steady stream of the Egg Clocks and the ethereal figures that controlled them.

The Egg Clock that had been projecting the images suddenly gave a static hiss like a communicator with very poor reception, then it began talking in an equally broken voice. The strangers had their own language that did not even sound like words to an observer.

_Make your report, Awaker, _it said.

_This area is a rich source,_ said one of the strangers, _the locations of major veins are being relayed._

_There is much activity there. I can sense it. It jars with the stillness of my realm._

_It receives a lot of traffic. I theorise that the thoroughfare is what causes the destabilisation necessary to allow the time pockets to emerge in crystalline form. _

_There is something the Egg Clocks are pursuing that they cannot track down._

_A very powerful Nightmaren. And something equally powerful that came in from the Waking World. And a... hybrid? But that disappeared._

_Something was making direct portals into the Waking World._

_That disappeared too, we are afraid. Long before we entered the realm._

_It could have made our goals much easier if we had managed to stabilise it. _

_It could very easily happen again. The powerful Nightmaren seems to be readying a second attempt. It is attempting to access and shape the Waking World as it shapes its own realm. _

_Nightmaren are very primitive. It probably thinks it is achieving something meaningful in doing so. It is shaping more illusions, in a slightly different illusionary world, that will be shattered in an eyeblink. Do not lower yourself to their level by thinking in terms of their timescale. The Great Awakening will exist, and it will come to all times at once, in all realms at once. Then we will exist again. Your duty is only to gather energy for the Awakening and make sure all realms are included. Do you understand?_

_Yes, Countdown, Sir. I exist only to enact the will of Lord Selph._

_Lord Selph will exist again, when the Awakening comes, and His Universe exists again. Then you will see Him. You will be the only entities in existence left to witness Him. _

_I am fascinated to find out what Lord Selph looks like,_ said the Awaker. It didn't know how to be anything other than honest, and it hadn't been programmed with many goals in its life other than to find out new things and either report back on them or Awaken them. The concept of Awaking Lord Selph made no sense. It waited for all the images to be streamed back to the Countdown, then it led its scouting party out of the chamber.

Pairs of small green eyes watched it leave from the shadows.


End file.
